People experience high levels of stress in their life, much of which is attributable to work commitments. People receive, read, and answer vast numbers of e-mails, engage in telephone conferences, travel to meetings, and are exposed to environmental conditions such as noise and adverse weather, for example. These activities and stimuli may increase the level of stress that a person experiences. When a person experiences high levels of stress there is a risk that he or she will experience a “burn out” and no longer be able to effectively handle his or her responsibilities, which adversely affects a person's ability to continue working. However, a person experiences stress from so many different sources (e.g., e-mail, travel commitments, etc.), it is difficult to quantify a person's stress level before he or she reaches the burn out stage. Moreover, chronic stress has been found to contribute to several major diseases, including clinical depression, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, HIV, and cancers.
The present invention addresses these and other concerns.